Pasquotank County, NC Appeal

Forty of North Carolina’s counties were covered by the preclearance requirement before Shelby County, and a draconian law like this would never have made it past the Justice Department. Nor would a whole bunch of local shenanigans deployed just last week in suppressing student and other voting. The Associated Press reported that “The Pasquotank County Board of Elections on Tuesday barred an Elizabeth City State University senior from running for city council, ruling his on-campus address couldn’t be used to establish local residency. Following the decision, the head of the county’s Republican Party said he plans to challenge the voter registrations of more students at the historically black university ahead of upcoming elections.”

Pasquotank County used to be a covered jurisdiction.

Well there’s now been an appeal in that case to the state board of elections. We’ll see if “respect” leads to a different decision.

This will be an important test case for what the state Board will allow some counties to get away with in NC.